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[Music] between 1985 and 1988 18 transiens hitchhikers and prostitutes were choked sexually
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molested and left for dead in the desert mountains of California the only Witnesses the
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insects of the desert and they also turned out to be extremely important pieces of evidence
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[Music] [Music] the women who had been choked unconscious and sexually molested were
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all dumped and left for dead in the high desert mountains near San Diego California not all of the victims died
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and those who survived all described the same scenario several of them had their
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pants undone and pulled down bras were moved moved up exposing their breasts one lady had a nipple ring removed so we
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thought there would been there had been some sort of sexual activity but because
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they were unconscious we had no proof of it Betty bass was one of the victims see
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you to byebye she's had a history of mental problems and is currently homeless but she can vividly recall the
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night 8 years ago when she accepted a ride from a stranger after leaving this Motel on
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elone Boulevard hard she looked for a ride going towards Ramona California a man in a silver car pulled
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up and offered to take her part way I take you as far as El Centro good enough he had a clean car so I thought you know
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that's a pretty good guy pretty nice guy you know I just thought he was okay as
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they drove over the mountains the driver said he needed to pull off the highway to take a bathroom break
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a when the driver walked around the car he asked Betty to grabed something from the back seat as she did he wrapped his
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arm around her neck and choked her the last thing she remembers was losing Consciousness when she woke up she
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walked up this hill looking for help so I walked and I walked and I walked well I finally um crawl over this fence I
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crawled to the other side of the street some family came by and put me in there at mot home and ate me up a little bit
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and then they took me to the hospital the scene of the attack is right here in the dirt right by this little
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null the car tire track stopped back here a few feet and then you could see Footprints up into this area her
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clothing some of her clothing was found here police photographed the shoe and tire Prince and also recovered two
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Marlboro cigarette butts on Betty bass's shirt detectives noticed a tiny red
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carpet fiber this attack sounded identical to another in the same vicinity just one month earlier two
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young girls were hitchhiking together at a restaurant near the interstate highway a silver compact automobile
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pulled up and the middle-aged man offered them a ride where you girls gone we're heading
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to Tucson take you as far as El Centro sounds good me hey hop in it was a ride they'll never forget
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[Music] [Music] this is Sheriff's it was my friend he straggled her do you have any idea who
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he is the guy who picked this up his hiking this girl was fortunate she survived her attack and her friend whom
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she feared was dead was later found in the desert frightened but alive the victims all provided a similar
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description of their attacker he was about early 40s short hair blondish grayish color glasses that's how they
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all described him obviously these were people who were going to take rides from anyone but they many of them told us
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that they felt comfortable getting in the car with him and there were other similarities with all of these attacks
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the things he said to these women it was almost uh like he had a script it was almost the same type of scenario I can
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only take you 40 miles I'm only going to El Centro the type of people he was
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victimizing were the vulnerable people in society some people who were having mental problems uh drug addicts Street
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people hitchhikers police had a description of the suspect some tire tracks and shoe print evidence but
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little else a sexual predator was loose in the mountains of California San Diego's eloh home
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Boulevard where prostitutes run ways and transients have congregated for years the reason location it's close to a
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highway Entrance Ramp convenient for hitchhikers looking for a ride and it was here where many of the
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victims were picked up we had a series of live victims and we also had dead victims out there who we thought were
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part of the pattern we had what we thought was a pretty consistent pattern common Footprints common tire tracks
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same type of victims being victimized and certainly the same area where they're being picked up and jumped when
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detectives were called to sheep's head Mountain on July 21st 1988 they feared
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another in the series of Choke and dump cases this time the victim was dead and nuded from the waist down she was found
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laying on the road here this was more dug out at the time the the greaters come in here through every so often and
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she was in the more in the ditch type of thing the victim had been dead for quite
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some time her skin was brown and blistered from the Sun her legs and feet were covered with blood it appeared the
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victim was alive before falling into the ditch because impressions of her arms flailing were found in the dirt
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detectives noticed a blood trail and her bare Footprints leading almost a mile up
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the mountain at the top of the mountain detectives found a pair of shoes some clothing two sets of footprints and
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signs of a struggle the footprints LED detectives to a parking area where they noticed a tire track it looked as if a
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car had turned around before leaving the scene the victim's bare Footprints LED
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from the clearing into the brush somehow she gets herself out of this area and then comes back up and then finds her
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way down the main road on the body investigators discovered some tiny Clues hundreds of live wormlike
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creatures they were carefully collected and preserved then taken to the forensics lab for
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analysis was it possible these tiny insects could tell forensic scientists something about the victim's last
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moments alive or even when she was killed the autopsy revealed that the victim had probably been choked but
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strangulation wasn't the cause of death the cause of death was actually a laceration of the vagina uh the
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mechanism would have been blood loss from that laceration the victim was identified as Sandra swick a 43-year-old
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transient from Florida swick's body was found in the same general vicinity as
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many of the other choke and dump victims all were found the same distance from the interstate highway usually near a v
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in the road where the attacker could park without being seen by others detectives still didn't have a suspect
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but 3 months after swick's murder detectives got an unexpected break while patrolling in the mountains sheriff's
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deputy Larry Daly noticed a car driving out of a deserted Side Road and as I came around the bend here I could
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see the the car coming out daily turned onto the side road and saw a woman lying
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in the dirt unconscious but still alive I saw the victim uh laying on the ground
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pants down past her knees her shirt pulled up to her neck as if someone had choked her daily immediately called for
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an ambulance and put out a description of the car he saw driving from the scene after 3 years of frustration could this
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be the break investigators were hoping for after finding the body of an unconscious
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woman in the desert sheriff's deputy Larry Daly rushed to his vehicle and called for help I also called out the
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description of the vehicle that I saw coming down the road towards me a short time later this silver Honda was stopped
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by an officer who heard the call what I wanted to see was I wanted to see a monster I wanted to see this monstrous
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man maybe someone with three arms who came out and was abducting women and and and strangling them the driver was
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41-year-old Ronald Porter an automotive mechanic with a history of sexual offenses the woman found unconscious in
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the desert survived her attack and was able to identify Porter as her attacker Porter confessed to the attack but would
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not admit to any of the other attacks over the past 3 years investigators believed Porter was responsible and they
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also suspected that Porter had murdered Sandra swick 3 months earlier to find out if all these crimes were the work of
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one individual San Diego authorities sought help from the FBI and their unit which specializes in studying serial
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murderers that another offender would choose to abduct the same type of victim bring it to the same type of location do
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the same types of Acts with them in the same locations almost exact locations it
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became pretty pretty evident to us that the probabilities favored it being one one person Larry anram identified the
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remote desert dump sites as the signature element of all of the crimes the attacker invested lots of
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time and effort into finding these remote locations another signature element was
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the type of women he chose he's making an assessment before he decides he's
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going to go ahead and ask her if she needs a ride and and when he's made that
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initial impression then once he's decided yeah I can control this victim um then she gets in the car and then it
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becomes somewhat of a game with him to get her where he wants wants to go the FBI was convinced that all of these
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crimes were indeed the work of the same individual The Next Step was for San Diego authorities to prove that Ronald
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Porter committed these crimes the carpet fibers in Porter's car were microscopically similar to the red
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carpet fiber found on the blouse of Betty bass tire tracks found at some of the crime scenes were similar to the
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print on the spare Michelin tire found in the trunk of Porter's car and when
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searching Porter's apartment police found shoes and boots with treadmarks consistent with those found at some of
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the choke and dump crime scenes a walkie-talkie discovered in Porter's storage shed belonged to a woman who was
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choked and dumped in the desert mountains a few years earlier and the blouse worn by that same victim
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contained a Seaman stain a DNA analysis of Ronald Porter's blood matched the
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Seaman stain from the blouse but despite all of this evidence prosecutors faced a
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major legal Problem by the time police arrested Ronald Porter the statute of limitations on most of these assault
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cases had run out if prosecutors were going to send Porter to jail for any length of time it would have to be for
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the murder of Sandra swick but the swick murder murder was their weakest case investigators found no seen no blood no
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hair or clothing fibers which could link Ronald Porter to the swick crime scene a
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tire track found at the Sandra swick attack site was too faint for analysis however some of the tennis shoe prints
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found at the swick crime scene were similar to a pair of tennis shoes found in Ronald Porter's apartment but
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Porter's attorney says a similar and a shoe print is inconclusive but 5 million
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other people with similar shoes with similar Treads could also have made the print and the prosecution faced another
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problem they weren't exactly sure when Sandra swick was murdered time of death
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determination by pathologist is a very inexact science if it's a science at all
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um there are certain changes the body under goes and we can predict General time frames for those but there's a lot
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of different variables that uh affect it if prosecutors wanted to convict Ronald
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Porter of murder they needed more could the tiny insects found on swick's body
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tell forensic scientists when Sandra swick died and tie Ronald Porter to her murder when detectives found Sandra
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swick's body on sheep's head Mountain it was badly decomposed the hot desert air and Sun
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had taken its toll and hundreds of tiny wormlike creatures were feeding on her decomposing flesh investigators wondered
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if these tiny creatures might offer some clues about when Sandra swick died detectives collected about a hundred of
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these creatures and sent them to the laboratory of David Faulkner he's a forensic entomologist an expert on
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insect activity on dead bodies they can tell you lots about where they've been
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where the victims been uh how old the victim is conditions of the body following death and those are the things
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that are interesting fauler first task was to determine the age of these creatures or maggots as they're called
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so he preserved some in alcohol at the exact stage of development as when they were found eventually the maggots would
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shrink and develop a hard shell and a week later emerge as a winged adult once fauler had an adult he could compare it
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to the hundreds of different flies which inhabit the California desert where swick's body was
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found after hours of study and Analysis fauler identified them the Flies were sarcophaga also known as flesh flies
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other things this particular group of flies uh will do is they'll fly in very
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bad weather so if it's foggy or rainy or overcast they'll be active and they'll
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be searching out a potential host uh whereas other flies will probably settle and wait until the sun comes out or till
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it gets warmer once Faulkner knew they were sarcophaga he could study the exact time frame of their life cycle the
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preserved specimens were in their third or final stage of laral development once
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you have them identified you know what stage in development the most developed ones are then you go backwards and say
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okay this was the temperature regime at that time this is how long this particular insect takes to develop to
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this stage therefore that body was available to these insects for this amount of time
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usually that indicates how long the person's been dead in normal weather conditions it takes a week for the baby
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maggots to develop to their third stage but the weather conditions in the desert
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are far from normal during the week Sandra swick's body was discovered the daytime temperatures average
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92° in 92° weather it would take only 3 and A2 days for the freshly laid maggots
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to develop to their third and final stage and Faulkner was able to tell investigators something else the
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sarcophaga never deposit their maggots in the dark they only do so in daylight I'm going to Florida this meant that
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Sandra swick was still alive when the sun set on Sunday evening July 17th but she was dead by Daybreak on Monday
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morning July 18th at the first sign of light these flesh flies were attracted to the chemical scent of swick's
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decomposing flesh and immediately laid their maggots the maggots would not have been as developed if she had been alive
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longer if she had been alive Monday afternoon uh Monday evening there's no way that these flies under those
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temperature conditions could have developed to that stage Faulkner's conclusions provided police with a
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scientific time frame for swick's murder now detectives could investigate Ronald
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Porter's whereabouts during the time of swick's death Porter worked as a
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mechanic at this Automotive chain store when his time sheets were subpoenaed they revealed he was not at work on
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Sunday July 17th in addition Porter provided no alibi regarding his whereabouts on that day and it matched
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up uh we had a time period where Ron Porter was available to drive from North part of the County Down to pick up
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Sandra swick and transporter to East East County based on the insect Clues and the similarities between the swick
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murder and the other cases Ronald Porter was charged in the murder of Sandra swick prosecutors believe Ronald Porter
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picked up swick as she hitch tied somewhere near an entrance ramp to Interstate 8 I'm going to Florida jump in I can
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take you about 40 miles to El Centra that'd be great how you doing good as the car traveled East into the mountains
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Porter pulled off the main Highway onto a dark deserted Road he may have used some excuse as he
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did in other cases possibly the need to take a bathroom break as he walked around the back of the car he surprised
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swick from behind grabbing her around the neck in a military type choke hold he pulled her
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from the car and choked her until she was [Music] unconscious he threw her to the ground
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removed her clothes and sexually assaulted her with his [Music] [Music] hand he then returned to his car and
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fled sometime later swick regained Consciousness dizzy disoriented and bleeding heavily from the attack swick
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walked Barefoot down the dark deserted road walking almost a mile before collapsing the blood trail was almost 1
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mile long and she bled to death from laceration suffered during the assault her death had to be a tough one very
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difficult long dying process that she went through and the insect Clues were able to provide detectives with the time
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of death something they were unable to determine by any other means find a defendant Ronald Elliot Porter guilty of
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the crime of murder Ronald Porter was convicted of second deegree murder in the death of Sandra swick and was
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sentenced to 28 years to life in prison Ronald Porter continues to maintain his innocence the insect Clues
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were an important element in their case against Ronald Porter and they told David Faulkner all he needed to know
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about Sandra swick's brutal attack and murder you get a lot of information from
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him whether a body's been moved uh how long the person's been dead or how long
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the body has been available to Insects uh whether the body's been buried whether the person took drugs whether
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they had been poisoned all these different sorts of things uh uh could be U uh in the insects that are collected
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or removed from the body [Music] a [Music]